Britain fights back in the battle for the sun lounger

As if being better than us at football, making cars and brewing beer were not enough, it now appears that the Germans also have the edge when it comes to holidays.

According to a new survey, they have more money to spend when abroad, they go away for longer – and are more adventurous in their choices of destination. What’s more, rather than seeing time away as a good excuse for an extended drinking binge, the average German is more likely to eat and drink more healthily when away – and to engage in active pursuits (and not just volleyball).

But there are clear signs the Brits don’t intend to take this lying down. According to the survey – commissioned by the price comparison website TravelSupermarket – the British have learned a few tricks from the masters when it comes to bagging a good spot on the beach or by the pool and are now much more likely to reserve a sunlounger with a towel.

The TravelSupermarket survey, based on interviews conducted in December 2014 with just over 2,000 German holidaymakers and an equivalent number of British ones, revealed the following:

* British holidaymakers plan to spend 23 per cent less than Germans on their holidays in 2015 (£1,219 compared with £1,582)

* German holidaymakers are more active, healthier and travel further afield

* Germans will go away for longer and are twice as likely to experience and engage with exotic cultures

* Despite popular belief, Britons are twice as likely to reserve a sun bed with a towel

* Britons are still three times as likely to use their holiday as an excuse to drink more

The TravelSupermarket team observed that in the past, German tour operators had run holiday programmes to destinations including the Cape Verde Islands, Zanzibar and Costa Rica, before they were on British radars. And they predicted that destinations such as Rhode Island and Portland in the USA, The Azores, the beaches in Northern Brazil and the Costa de la Luz in Spain would soon be more prominent on the British holiday agenda as they’ve recently seen an influx of German holidaymakers.

Britons are less adventurous when choosing a destination, the poll suggests

For all that, there appears to be one area in which the Brits are showing no desire to copy their Teutonic cousins – in the practice of wearing sandals with socks on holiday. According to the survey, Germans themselves seem to be realising that this was something of a fashion faux pas with just 10 per cent admitting they still favoured this form of footwear.

Comparisons between British and German holidaymakers were plentiful last summer when the Berlin newspaper Bild described UK sun seekers as drunk, fat and sunburnt, with "ailments" ranging from “underwear amnesia”, “vodka cough”, and “Welsh wandering hands”.